Butler Case Legal Bill Is $1.3 Million

A Du Page County judge on Wednesday ordered the Oak Brook Park District to pay $1.35 million in legal fees to the law firm that represented developer Michael Butler in a land condemnation case.

The award is less than half the $3.1 million fee sought in the case by Burke and Ryan, a Chicago firm that specializes in condemnation cases. However, it`s several times more than the $250,000 the park district argued it should pay.

Both sides have 30 days to appeal the order to the Illinois Appellate Court. Attorneys and officials said they need to review the five-page order issued Wednesday by Circuit Court Judge John S. Teschner before commenting or deciding whether to appeal.

``We`ll talk about it at our next board meeting on Dec. 19,`` said Susan Johnson, park board president, after Wednesday`s brief court hearing in Wheaton. ``We`ll be talking to our lawyers about it, and we`ll just wait and reserve comment until after the meeting,`` she said.

Their lawyers, from the Wheaton law firm of Rathje, Woodward, Dyer and Burt, also declined to comment.

The fee dispute arises from the district`s attempt to buy 32.7 acres of Butler property in Oak Brook for $1.1 million in 1983. The Butlers rejected that offer, so the district filed a condemnation suit in Du Page County Court, which resulted in a jury verdict setting the property`s value at $17 million. That figure was more than the district could afford, so the district dropped its attempt to acquire the land.

Burke and Ryan`s fee was to be $250,000 plus 15 percent of any amount over $1.1 million that the park district paid for the land. With interest, that would now be about $3.1 million-had the park district bought the land.

William Ryan, a partner in the firm, argued that state law required the district to pay his fee even though the district abandoned the condemnation suit and didn`t buy the land.

Michael Butler, once a millionaire polo player, real estate developer and devotee of 1960s hippy culture, testified that the case contributed to his bankruptcy by tying up the land in litigation for several years while the real estate market was at its peak.

Teschner`s order said the $3.1 million was in fact a reasonable fee for what Burke and Ryan did in the case. But he also noted an Illinois Supreme Court order in a similar case, which states the lawyer`s fee in an abandoned condemnation case should be ``what is reasonable under the circumstances.``

Teschner concluded that the law prevented him from awarding the $3.1 million fee. Instead, based on considerations which included the difficulty of the case, the time that lawyers spent on it, and Burke and Ryan`s reputation in condemnation law, Teschner decided that $1.35 million was a proper fee.

His order said evidence presented in the case showed Burke and Ryan spent 3,461 hours working on the case. On that basis, the fee he awarded amounts to $390 an hour.